News

The first pass at Concrete5 5.7 Developer Documentation is now available. This includes background, a full glossary, installation and upgrade information, request and dispatcher lifecycle information and our complete theming guidelines. These theming guidelines contain three new screencasts, detailing theme package creation, custom grid framework creation, and the complete process by which you can make your Concrete5 themes customizable.

Good Monday everyone, we are pleased to release the brand new editors guide for concrete5.7. Over the course of the last several weeks, we have been hard at work not only releasing marketplace intregation with 5.7, but completing the grueling task of 5.7 documentation. Today, we published the editors guide with our sights on completing the developers documentation in full within the coming weeks.

Please take a tour through the new editors guide and let us know what you think! Again, we look forward to publishing the developers documentation in full very soon.

We just released concrete5 5.7 last week (and updated it this past Monday!) We're encouraging everyone to dive into the next generation of concrete5, and, to make that a little easier, we're compiling how-tos, articles, and guides from our own site and around the web focusing on all things 5.7.

## 5.7 Architecture

Here's a video we put together on concrete5's architecture. Some of this may be old news to existing concrete5 developers, but there is plenty of 5.7 info in here as well:

[Watch Architecture Video >]()

## Add-On Development

I originally wrote the following how-tos several months ago, in which I update an existing add-on to make it 5.7. compatible.

### concrete5 5.7 Add-On Development, Parts 1 and 2

[Read Part 1](http://www.concrete5.org/documentation/how-tos/developers/concrete5-5.7-add-on-development-part-1/)

[Read Part 2](http://www.concrete5.org/documentation/how-tos/developers/concrete5-5.7-add-on-development-part-2/)

### concrete5.7 Upgrade Packages

Here's a helpful guide from community member Remo on how to update your add-on packages for 5.7.

Here is a series of four screencasts on how to convert an HTML template into a concrete5 theme. This, paired with the add-on guides above, should give marketplace theme developers everything they need to make compelling themes for 5.7, including information on new 5.7-specific features like grid and asset support, and custom area, block and editor classes.

[Part 1: Converting an HTML Template to a concrete5 Theme](http://www.concrete5.org/documentation/5.7/developers/themes/converting-an-html-template-to-a-concrete5-theme/)

[Part 2: Enabling Grid Support for Areas and Layouts](http://www.concrete5.org/documentation/5.7/developers/themes/enabling-grid-support-for-areas-and-layo/)

You'll notice that these four screencasts link in to a new, empty 5.7 developer documentation section. We're going to be adding new developer documentation here, covering everything that's new in 5.7 as well as existing topics, in the hope that this is the best resource for implementing concrete5 sites and solving problems using concrete5.

Start working on getting those add-ons and themes updated, and let us know what topics you want to learn about next.

This will be a stable production ready version of 5.7, with no marketplace integration. We're getting it out there for our add-on/theme developers to build towards knowing nothing major will change. We also want our larger clients who may be solving their web challenges with the core and custom code more than the add-ons/themes we sell to be able to start working on their big projects with 5.7 sooner rather than later.

5.7.0.1 will release on September 30th.

This will include marketplace integration, bug fixes, and whatnot. We will be working frantically on docs during this period as well (editors guide has already started coming together) so expect that and some more site improvements here to support the maturing ecosystem..

We're actually putting aside the time to redesign concrete5.org again in May. Here's our priority list and some out of date comps to get your mind running. Let us know if there's something we should be thinking about that we're missing.

Packt Publishing has released a new concrete5 book: concrete5 Cookbook byDavid Strack (that's community member rmxdave).

It's a practical collection of solutions to tasks that both novice and experienced concrete5 developers face on a regular basis.Throughout the course of over 140 recipes and 3 bonus project blueprint chapters, PHP developers will learn how to create custom blocks and dashboard interfaces as well as programmatically work with pages, files, users, permissions, and more.

The book is available in print or as an eBook fromPackt Publishing--right now it's even on sale. You can also find it at Amazon.com and other book retailers.

Today we launch Certification for concrete5 with a slightly unique approach (would you expect anything less from us?). We've decided to break certification up into very granular measurable topics. We're starting off with 21 different tests, organized into Developer, Designer and Editor categories. These cover topics such as Upgrading and Moving Sites, Theme Development, Basic Block Building, Developer Concepts, and Advanced Permissions.

If you are an employer who needs to find an expert, you can search for members with specific certifications to match the type of work you need done. There's no abstract distinctions for you to try to guess about. Each certification course is a quick multiple choice test that covers a very specific topic.

More details:

Get 3 test credits for $15 or you can buy a full pack of 21 for $95.

Time to take a test is one minute per question

Tests can be retaken after 24 hours

Members search now includes filters for each Certification test

Tests are typically made up of 25 multiple choice questions that are pulled from a larger pool of questions

To celebrate the much awaited launch of ceritifcation, we're running an awesome early adopter promo:

The first 5 people who complete a certification will receive a care package from the core team.The care package will include a t-shirt, a custom button, and a printed certificate signed by the core team.